“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The inner senses deliver data from the inner world of reality to the body. The outer senses deliver data from the outside world of camouflage to the body. However, the inner senses are aware of the body’s own physical data at all times, while the outer senses are concerned with the body mainly in its relationship to camouflage environment. In other words the inner senses have an immediate, constant knowledge of the body in a way that the outer senses do not.

As I have said, the outer senses deal mainly and as far as I know exclusively with camouflage pattern. The inner senses, my dear Joseph, are senses which deal with realities beneath camouflage patterns, and which carry data of these realities, these inner realities, to the body. These inner senses therefore are thoroughly capable of seeing the inside of the body, in a way that the outer eyes cannot.

It is extremely difficult to go into detail concerning the inner senses, simply because they are uncamouflaged. I do hope to go into detail however, now or later. In some respects the inner senses can be compared to channels on your plane. When continuity is taken into consideration however then the analogy is a poor one, since the word channel seems to imply a more or less permanent opening, and this is not true. One of the marvels of your outer senses is their reach. They actually carry you further ahead, in distance for example, than your physical body may be at any particular time.

I risk repeating myself, but I want these steps to be plain. This vital data is sent to the mind by the inner senses. Any material that is important for the body’s contact with outer camouflage patterns is given to the brain. The subconscious, so-called, is a connective between mind and brain, between the inner senses and the outer senses. It is actually partly on your plane and partly on other planes. Portions of it do deal with camouflage patterns, with the personal past of the present personality, with racial camouflage memories; and the greater portion belongs to the inner world, and as data comes into it from the inner world, so can it reach far into the inner world itself.

“Remember that these Inner Senses operate as a whole, working together smoothly, and that to some degree the divisions between them are arbitrary on my part. This fifth sense differs from the fourth [conceptual sense] in that it does not involve cognition of a concept. It is similar to the fourth sense in that it is free from past, present, and future, and involves an intimate becoming, or transformation of self into something else.

[...] Using this sense, you penetrate through the capsule that encloses the self. This Inner Sense, like all others, is being used constantly by the inner self, but very little of the data received is sifted through to the subconscious or ego. Without the use of this sense, however, no man would ever come close to understanding another.” This sense is a stronger version of inner vibrational touch.

[...] You attempt to understand a friend by using your physical senses. Use of this fifth sense would enable you to enter into your friend. In its fullest sense, it is not available to you within your system. [...]

The outer senses deal mainly with camouflage patterns. The inner senses deal with realities beneath camouflage … and deliver inner information. These inner senses, therefore, are capable of seeing within the body, though the physical eyes cannot. As the senses of sight, sound and smell appear to reach outward, bringing data to the body from an outside observable camouflage pattern, so the inside senses seem to extend far inward, bringing inner reality data to the body. [...]

The inner senses, then, deliver data from the inner world of reality to the body. The outer senses deliver data from the outside world of camouflage to the body. However, the inner senses are aware of the body’s own physical data at all times while the outer senses are concerned with the body mainly in its relationship to camouflage environment.

The inner senses have an immediate, constant knowledge of the body in a way that the outer senses do not. The material is delivered to the body from the inner world through the inner senses. [...] The mind, being uncamouflaged, then, is the receiving station for the data brought to it by the inner senses. [...]

The elements — those that you now know and those you will create — are camouflages of the basic stuff or vitality which you cannot discover with your outer senses. [...] Because man has such a sense of curiosity, scientists will be forced finally to use the inner senses. [...]

As far as inner senses go, it is an extremely basic and rudimentary sense, containing within it the possibility of other inner senses. Although it is one of the most necessary senses, I could not give it to you first since you would not have understood it.

[...] I am going to leave further discussion of this sense until some later session, when after additional material you will be able to understand it more thoroughly. And again remember that these senses, these inner senses, operate as a whole, and that at least to some degree the divisions between them are somewhat arbitrary on my part, and are made for the sake of simplicity.

The fifth inner sense carries us further along in this direction, and involves what I will call cognition of the knowledgeable essence. This sense differs from the fourth inner sense in that it does not involve the cognition of a concept.

[...] With your outer senses now, you attempt to understand a relative or a friend. Use of this fifth inner sense, were it available to you, and in its fuller sense -fortunately it is not—would enable you to enter into your friend.

The outer senses do not deal with direct perception of reality. The outer senses themselves are camouflage patterns, part of the necessary and essential physical body camouflage. They, the outer senses, are perceptors of camouflage patterns. [...]

The inner senses belong to you as inhabitors of a spontaneous inner reality universe. They, the inner senses, are your regardless of the particular camouflage plane you might inhabit at any given instance. Only by using the inner senses can you perceive while on your plane the inner reality of which it is part.

You do not even perceive camouflage reality with your outer senses with any dependability. Telepathy, which belongs to the inner senses, is used constantly. [...] The inner senses, Philip, experience direct data instantaneously.

[...] Your outer senses lie when they experience the table as solid. [...] The inner senses are not so deceived, and never have been. The inner senses experience directly the reality of which your matter is composed.

“Without this sixth sense and its constant use by the inner self, you could not construct the physical camouflage universe. You can compare this sense with instinct, as you think of it, although it is concerned with the innate knowledge of the entire universe. [...] A spider, spinning its web, is using this sense in almost its purest form. The spider has no intellect or ego, and its activities are pure spontaneous uses of the Inner Senses, unhampered and uncamouflaged to a great extent. [...]

[...] They reveal themselves to us when we turn our attention away from physical data and look inward; this is when the sixth Inner Sense comes into play. [...] Surely this sense suddenly came into operation during my experience with “cosmic consciousness” and was partially responsible for my “Idea Construction” manuscript. This sense gives rise to most experiences of a revelationary character.

“This is an extremely rudimentary sense. It is concerned with the entity’s innate working knowledge of the basic vitality of the universe, without which no manipulations of vitality would be possible—as, for example, you could not stand up straight without first having an innate sense of balance.

[...] This experience comes very close to the third inner sense. If you will remember again our imaginary experience through the inner senses as we looked down at the street, you will remember that I spoke of sensing not only the present essence of the living consciousnesses within a certain scope, but I also mentioned sensing their past and futures.

The inner ego or the inner self-conscious self directs such experiences and uses the inner senses in much the same way that you use the outer senses, except that the inner ego knows all of the mechanics involved in the use of the inner senses, and you know little of the mechanics involved with the outer senses.

This sensing would have been done by the third inner sense, in conjunction of course with other senses, and this perception of past, present and future would not take any clock time, at least not theoretically. [...]

You may have experiences through all of the inner senses but not at once. [...] What I should perhaps add for the sake of clearness is that you will not as a rule be aware of data that comes to you through more than one sense, inner sense, at a time.

[...] Certainly I don’t consciously separate visual and auditory data unless I stop to think of it, though I know I receive the information through different senses. All of the physical senses operate at once to give us our picture of reality. We use the Inner Senses the same way, constantly, far beneath usual conscious notice. [...]

“Think of the Inner Senses as paths leading to an inner reality. The first sense involves perception of a direct nature—instant cognition through what I can only describe as inner vibrational touch. [...] This sense would permit him to feel the basic sensations felt by each of the trees about him. [...]

[...] I have told you that there are Inner Senses as well as physical ones. [...] You must learn to recognize, develop, and use these Inner Senses. [...]

[...] But to use the Inner Senses properly, they must be used smoothly, often blending one into the other. [...] Using the Inner Senses, we simply increase our entire range of perceptions.

[...] He uses these inner senses constantly, though the actor part of himself is so intent upon the play that this escapes him. In a large manner, the physical senses actually form the physical reality they seem to only perceive. [...] You can tell the position of the other actors for example, or time by clock, but these physical senses will not tell you that time is itself a camouflage, or that consciousness forms the other actors, or that realities that you cannot see exist over and beyond the physical matter that is so apparent.

You can, however, using your inner senses, perceive reality as it exists apart from the play and your role in it. In order to do this you must, of course, momentarily at least turn your attention away from the constant activity that is taking place — turn off the physical senses, as it were — and switch your attention to those events that have escaped you earlier.

(10:20.) Highly simplified indeed, the effect would be something like changing one set of glasses for another, for the physical senses are as artificial, basically speaking, to the inner self, as a set of glasses or a hearing aid is to the physical self. The inner senses, therefore, are but rarely used completely consciously.

You would be more than disoriented, for example, but quite terrified, if between one moment and the next your familiar environment as you knew it disappeared to be replaced by other sets of data that you were not ready to understand, so much information from the inner senses must be translated in terms that you can comprehend. Such information must somehow make sense to you as three-dimensional selves, in other words.

This does not mean that evidence cannot be found, and overwhelming evidence, for the existence of the inner senses. [...] It is extremely difficult to relate data received by the inner senses into data that will be picked up by the outer senses.

The fact is that when you insist upon evidence through the outside, regularly accepted senses, that you almost automatically turn off the inner sense apparatus. [...]

It is true that as a whole you do not as yet understand the inner senses intellectually. The part of yourself which you deny understands the inner senses well. [...]

If you will think (I hope) for simplicity’s sake of the whole self as it exists on your plane with its physical body, conscious ego and inner self as one field unit, which is also part of the larger or more complete entity as one field unit within another, then perhaps it will not be too much for you to imagine the connection, or one of the connections, between the entity field and the whole-self field, which is on your plane as being the inner senses—that is, the inner senses are one of the connectives between these two fields.

[...] Each person will experience the Inner Senses in a different way, since perception of any kind is highly individual. It is extremely difficult to use the other Inner Senses without first using Psy-Time, however. In fact some of my students “turned on” their other Inner Senses spontaneously when doing Psy-Time. Some have used Psy-Time to receive information concerning their past lives; in this case, they used many of the Inner Senses together to search out the data they wanted.

“An energy personality who wishes to become a part of your system does so using this sense. [...]

What Seth is saying here is that the inner self uses this sense to initiate the birth of one of its personalities in physical life. [...]

What is the point in learning to use the Inner Senses? [...]

[...] If you become proficient in the use of the third Inner Sense [perception of past, present, and future] when cognition is more or less spontaneous, then you can utilize the conceptual sense with more freedom. [...] Unless you use the Inner Senses in this manner, you will only receive a glimmering of a concept, regardless of its simplicity.”

“The fourth Inner Sense involves direct cognition of a concept in much more than intellectual terms. [...]

I was using this sense, I believe, in the episode described in Chapter 17, experiencing a concept that could not be expressed adequately in words, when everything in the room seemed to grow to tremendous size.

[...]

Remember, according to Seth these Inner Senses are used by the whole self constantly. Since past, present, and future have no basic reality, this sense allows us to see through the apparent time barriers. [...] Any precognitive experience would entail use of this Inner Sense. [...]

“If you will remember our imaginary man as he stands upon a street, you will recall that I spoke of his feeling all of the unitary essences of each living thing within his range, using the first Inner Sense. Using this third sense, this experience would be expanded. [...]

Different outer senses are necessary at different levels and on various planes to interpret the different camouflage patterns. These outer senses are developed to cope with these particular camouflage patterns which the personality will meet in its various environments. The inner senses always operate regardless of the particular environment in which the personality is presently involved. The inner senses provide the whole personality with balance, and enable it to keep in contact with its vitality source.

This does not in any way absolve you from using your outer senses to their fullest capacity. If you recall, your outer senses, Joseph, tipped you off as to a message that your inner senses had been endeavoring to deliver. The falling tree incident is what I am referring to, and often there is such a completed circle when the outer senses will return you to inner data.

[...] On some planes the inner senses are the only senses, because all other necessities vanish since the inner senses function at greatest capacity.

[...] The outer senses are not as fluent as the inner. [...] The outer senses dealing with rigid camouflage patterns could not be as fluent as the inner senses.

Now: The senses that you use, in a very real manner, create the environment that you perceive. Your physical senses necessitate the perception of a three-dimensional reality. [...]

Each reader, therefore, has inner senses, and to some extent uses them constantly, though he is not aware of doing so at an egotistical level. Now, we use the inner senses quite freely and consciously. [...]

It is quite true that your physical senses create the reality that they perceive. [...] You perceive its reality through one set of highly specialized senses. [...]

[...] The physical senses force you to translate experience into physical perceptions. The inner senses open your range of perception, allow you to interpret experience in a far freer manner and to create new forms and new channels through which you, or any consciousness, can know itself.

This is closely related to one of the inner senses, the second inner sense, and it is upon psychological time that you must try to transpose your inner visions. [...] For instance, when I tell you that the second sense is like your sense of time, while this does give you a certain understanding or feeling of what this second sense is like, nevertheless it also is confusing, I know, because you are apt to compare the two too closely.

It is true that the difference is beyond words, that is the sense apparatus that you are trying to use, is much different than the outer apparatus with which you are familiar. The inner senses however give much stronger impressions than ones given by the outer senses. [...]

Dear Joseph, apropos of your remarks during your break: I feel concept patterns, or at least that is the nearest I can come to explaining it to you, and this my dear friend will involve our third inner sense when we really go into that discussion. It involves a different idea entirely from the first inner sense, which somewhat corresponds on a different level to your empathy. There is a subtle distinction between the two senses that sets them apart.

There is an inner sense, dear Joseph, that in a vague manner corresponds to your own inner images. That is, you use this inner sense quite inadvertently in your visions, except that as a result of your lack of consistent training you see these but dimly. [...]

Children practice using all of their senses in play-dreams, which then stimulate the senses themselves, and actually help ensure their coordination. [...] There is an interesting point connected with the necessity to coordinate the workings of the senses, in that before this process occurs there is no rigid placement of events. [...] The uncoordinated child’s senses, for example, may actually hear words that will be spoken tomorrow, while seeing the person who will speak them today.

When children dream, they utilize these inner senses as adults do, and then through dreaming they learn to translate such material into the precise framework of the exterior senses. [...] If you want to sense the motion of your psyche, it is perhaps easiest to imagine a situation either in the past or the future, for this automatically moves your mental sense-perceptions in a new way.

[...] These will involve the utilization of some of the inner senses, for which you have no objective sense-correlations. [...]

Focusing the senses in time and space is to some extent an acquired art, then — one that is of course necessary for precise physical manipulation. [...]

[...] I have spoken of the inner and outer senses to make our discussion easier. [...] The apparent outer senses are merely concerned with the particular camouflage of a particular plane. The inner senses are concerned with vitalities beneath the camouflage. These inner senses, if I may use an analogy again, are like hidden underground trains that carry important fuel from one country to another.

Again, your elements, those that you know and those that you will discover, and the elements you will create, are only camouflages of the basic stuff or vitality, which you will not discover with your outer senses. [...] Because man has such a sense of curiosity the scientists on your plane will be forced finally to use their own inner senses. [...] You will come no closer to knowledge of the fifth dimension until you use the inner senses as tools of perception.

The inner senses deal with what actually is. The inner senses are the carriers of our fuel, that is, they can be likened to the various cars of our imaginary train. It takes some doing to be aware of this fuel, since it is so instantly transformed by the outer senses into the stuff of camouflage. [...]

Because Ruburt’s background in this life was particularly bizarre in a way and certainly unpleasant, he became beautifully efficient as far as sensing the approach of psychic storms is concerned and very adept at sensing moods, and also amazingly efficient in learning self-protective devices. [...]

Psychological vitality is a transformation of energy, again, into terms not recognizable by the outer senses. There are literally countless such manifestations of energy with which the outer senses are not familiar. The inner senses, to the contrary, are well aware of these manifestations, and of the existence of an open infinite system, within which they only are equipped to function.

As individual reliance upon the outer senses develops, the personality to a large degree relies upon them, and gradually loses the habit of relying upon the more familiar inner senses utilized mainly in infancy and childhood. This is usually a matter of practicality; yet there are those who continue stubbornly this older and basic reliance upon the inner senses, and these individuals utilize the realization of an open system.

Since the outer senses or their equivalent are the main perceptors of camouflage constructions, then the outer senses and the physical apparatus or its equivalent will habitually perceive its particular system as a closed one.

The outer senses perceive only certain given distinctions within an open, infinite system, and these distinctions therefore become the apparent boundaries of the system. A closed system is, in other words, the result of the limitations of the outward senses, whose nature it is to distinguish as a meaningful reality only one portion of an open infinite system.

[...] From her description of it I thought she might have been exploring an ability related to the inner senses. [...] (Several years later, Jane was to list nine such inner senses in Chapter 19 of The Seth Material.) Jane said that upon coming slowly awake from her nap she’d had the very peculiar feeling of ‘growing larger.’ The laughing phrase she used was that she’d felt as ‘big as an elephant.’ Her boundaries of awareness seemed to have expanded. [...]

[...] Ruburt experienced this on a physical level, trying to translate inner data into sensation that could be recognized by the outer senses. This seventh inner sense represents an extension of the self, a widening of its conscious comprehension … or a pulling together into … a minute capsule that enables the self to enter other fields.

“Using the senses developed on a particular plane to perceive its characteristic camouflage patterns, it is almost impossible to see beyond these boundary effects. The inner senses are inherently equipped to do this, but for many reasons they do not. [...]

[...] She hadn’t sensed anything happening within this area, but thought that she might have, given more knowledge and experience. [...]